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Back in September we were asked to supply some vintage china for the wedding of the lovely Jenny and Russell from Surrey. They held their celebration at beautiful Mapperton Gardens in Beaminster, a gorgeous back drop for a wedding with a touch of vintage style! Here’s some pictures of their day to chase away the snowy blues! We just love Jenny’s dress, the splash of sunshine yellow in the little bridesmaid dress and those pretty informal table flower arrangements – and Russell does look rather dashing too!

Happy New Year! It’s wet and muddy and pretty dull out there at the moment so we thought we’d share some pictures from a summer Christening to cheer everyone up! Back in June the lovely Kerrie asked us to supply vintage china for 40 people for a Christening reception at the fabulous King’s Head Hotel in Wimborne. We were also asked to put together a range of flowers in teacups to complement the china, the location and our gorgeous tablecloths. Here’s what we did……..and huge thanks to the very talented Steve Atkins for the photos! Enjoy

Happy New Year everyone! We do hope this year brings you peace and happiness even though we currently seem to be wading through rain and mud at every turn! It can’t last, honestly…….. So to cheer us up we thought we’d share a few more photos from the lovely event we were involved in back in the summer with Julia’s House in Corfe Mullen.

Children’s charity Julia’s House (dedicated to supporting children with life-limiting conditions) wanted to say thank you to their volunteers as part of National Volunteers Week by holding a vintage tea at their hospice at Corfe Mullen.

With more than 100 volunteers supporting the charity – taking on work from fundraising to van driving; working in the Julia’s House shops, providing admin work and giving support at the hospice itself – there’s a huge range and potential for volunteering activity that is vital to the charity.

The vintage tea was an opportunity for employees from Julia’s House to say thank you – serving tea and scones to volunteers and showing them the facilities and work that takes place at the Corfe Mullen hospice.

Follow the link HERE to see what Julia’s House had to say about the day and do enjoy the photos below – we just lurve that lion!!! And he didn’t eat too many cream cakes either!

For our final blog of 2012 we thought we would share with you one of our favourite Christmas poems “Twas the Night before Christmas” also known as “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by American poet Clement Clarke Moore (1779 – 1863). Apparently, before this poem became so popular, St. Nicholas (of course Santa Claus) had never been associated with a sleigh or reindeers! Can’t really imagine not having Rudolf around at Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all at Vintage Dorset! We hope you have a peaceful and joyful day and a great New Year – see you in 2013!

Twas the Night before Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds, While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads. And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap, Had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter, I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter. Away to the window I flew like a flash, Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St Nick. More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

“Now Dasher! now, Dancer! now, Prancer and Vixen! On, Comet! On, Cupid! on, on Donner and Blitzen! To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall! Now dash away! Dash away! Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly, When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky. So up to the house-top the coursers they flew, With the sleigh full of Toys, and St Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof The prancing and pawing of each little hoof. As I drew in my head, and was turning around, Down the chimney St Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot, And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. A bundle of Toys he had flung on his back, And he looked like a peddler, just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry! His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow, And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth, And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath. He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when he laughed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself! A wink of his eye and a twist of his head, Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work, And filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk. And laying his finger aside of his nose, And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose!

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle, And away they all flew like the down of a thistle. But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight, “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!”

It’s one of our favourite times of the year….when we get to decorate the Christmas cake! Our cake (made from a very old family recipe going back three generations) has been resting happily under the bed all wrapped up in parchment for the last few months, only coming out every now and again for a feed of brandy, sometimes whiskey and occasionally rum (and to be honest any alcoholic spirit we can find……eeek it’s going to be more like a Christmas cake cocktail!) and now it’s time to decorate it – before the fumes knock us out. We thought we’d share the process with you – we are no Nigella’s here at Vintage Dorset so bear with us, we like things simple and uncomplicated and we’re not looking for perfection!

So to begin – most importantly we always have a small glass of something gorgeous on the side to help the decorating process go smoothly (this year a lovely Pedro Ximenez sherry) and put the fab old Christmas tunes CD on to really get in the festive spirit, then we can get started.

We’ve chosen a lovely old single tier cake stand for our cake this year.

And here’s the monster itself in all its naked glory! We’ve turned it upside down to give a nice flat (ish) decorating surface.

We used clingfilm on the board when we rolled out the marzipan as it’s so much easier and you don’t end up with a sticky mess to clear up. We’ve gone for white marzipan as we like icing to be fairly thin and we don’t want the yellow marzipan showing through. You can use brandy marzipan but we thought there was already enough booze going on! We spread apricot jam over the cake before applying the marzipan – or you could use marmalade but not the lumpy kind – not conducive to a nice flat surface!

Here’s the marzipaned effort and then the iced cake. We used fondant icing – mainly for ease but Royal icing is fine – and definitely better if you want a good old fashioned snow scene. Ok so our iced cake may be a bit wonky but as we said – we’re not after perfection here – and by now we’ve had a glass or two of sherry!

And so to the decorating! We found some lovely reproduction vintage Christmas cards and cut out the scenes we liked to make a 3D effect. Just make sure you allow some card below the picture to make a little stand. We used sterilised pins to pin the cutouts to the cake but you could use a bit of icing instead.

Then we added a lovely ribbon with a cutout label (again from a Christmas card) and finished off with a little vintage inspired wreath at the front with another ribbon round the cake (mainly to disguise the lumps and bumps!). Very simple but very pretty. Here’s the finished article – we like it, hope you do too!